3 Rare Titanic Artifacts Top $100K at Auction

Pocket watch taken from body of 2nd-class passenger sells for nearly $119K
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 8, 2023 10:39 AM CST
Updated Nov 14, 2023 9:39 AM CST
These Auction Items Touched Titanic Survivors, and the Dead
The Titanic is seen leaving Southampton, England, on April 10, 1912, on her maiden voyage.   (AP Photo/File)
UPDATE Nov 14, 2023 9:39 AM CST

Someone paid more than $100,000 for a century-old dinner menu, reflecting "ongoing interest" in the Titanic, according to auction house Henry Aldridge & Son Ltd. The menu—coveted by Titanic enthusiasts as the only one to survive from April 11, 1912, three days before the luxury ocean liner struck an iceberg that would spell its doom—sold Saturday at an auction in the UK for $101,600, about $15,000 above the high estimate, per CBS News. A lifeboat blanket sold for $117,500, just shy of the $123,000 high estimate, while a pocket watch recovered from the body of a second-class passenger sold for $118,700, about $20,000 above the high estimate. The auction house said water stains indicate the watch's hands, now missing, stopped at 2:25am, five minutes before the ship sank, per Artnet News.

Nov 8, 2023 10:39 AM CST

What is believed to be the sole existing first-class menu from the night after the Titanic departed England is among a collection of artifacts from the doomed ship soon to grace the auction block. The various items to be sold Saturday in England, including a waterlogged pocket watch and lifeboat blanket carried by a survivor, offer a peek at the lives of the more than 2,200 passengers and crew, most of whom were lost, CNN reports. The April 11, 1912, dinner menu, in particular, "reveals the opulence that the ship's first-class passengers would have experienced," per CNN. Meal options included oysters, spring lamb with mint sauce, and beef sirloin with horseradish cream. Dessert options included Victoria pudding and a French "bordaloue" tart.

British auction house Henry Aldridge & Son Ltd. said the faded, water-stained menu almost certainly spent time in the North Atlantic after the ship began to sink in the early hours of April 15, 1912. It was found earlier this year among the possessions of the late Canadian historian Len Stephenson. It's unclear how he obtained it, but he lived in Nova Scotia, "where the Titanic victims' bodies were taken after being pulled from the water," CBS News reports. It appears to be the only known example of a first-class menu from the night of April 11, according to the auction house, which conversed with leading memorabilia collectors. It's expected to fetch up to $86,000. A tartan blanket used by a survivor in a lifeboat is expected to fetch even more—around $123,000, per CNN.

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The auction house said the blanket, marked with the White Star Line logo, is "one of the rarest three-dimensional objects we have seen." It once belonged to Frederick Toppin, a New York representative of the White Star Line, which owned the Titanic. Toppin is said to have obtained it while meeting survivors at a New York pier. It supposedly traveled to shore with a survivor aboard the rescue ship RMS Carpathia, the BBC reports. Also up for grabs is second-class passenger Sinai Kantor's Swiss-made pocket watch, expected to sell for up to $98,000. It was found on the lifeless body of the 34-year-old Russian who was pulled from the ocean during the recovery operation. Its "movement is heavily corroded from the salt water of the Atlantic, but the Hebrew figures on the stained face are still visible," per CBS. (More Titanic stories.)

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